5 Behind-the-Scenes Facts I Learned as a Pro Wrestler

Let's face it: Society sees "professional wrestler" as kind of a ridiculous job. You're getting paid to participate in a fictionalized romp consisting of men in tights pretending to injure one another. But like most jobs, it only looks easy from the outside.

I'm Dustin Nichols, former independent wrestler, and there's a whole bunch of fascinating and/or horrifying things you probably didn't know about the sport. For example ...

#5. The Refs Are Often Telling the Wrestlers What Moves to Do Next ...

Notice anything odd about it, other than the fact that Sheamus' hair makes it look like there's a fierce blast of wind flying from the ref's mouth?

Look at the ref's ear. Why does he need an earpiece? What, does he have to be reminded of the rules of his fake sport during the match? Is he an undercover member of the Secret Service? Hell, you wouldn't think a WWE referee would need much of anything -- isn't his job to just sort of watch the match and conveniently get distracted when the heel (evil wrestler) does something shady?

The wrestlers know what they're supposed to do up to a point, but they're not the writers, and they're not in charge -- there has to be someone directly in communication with the guys organizing the match to deliver instructions into the ring (such as in-match changes to the script), and that someone is the referee. He gets directions from the agents who set up the match (or in the case of the WWE, Vince McMahon himself) through the earpiece.

When you see the ref talking to the wrestlers, he's not offering warnings or stern reminders of the rules. He'll call out the next spots (moves) for the wrestlers if they need a reminder, stop matches from going too long, and make sure the match has the right flow. Sometimes a decision may be made to change an outcome in the middle of the match -- the ref can then jump in and do a quick count the next time the designated loser hits the mat.

#4. ... And the Wrestlers Are Choreographing the Match on the Fly

Jeff Randall/Photodisc/Getty Images

Of course, the other difference from live theater is that in wrestling, if one player decides to improvise and the others aren't in on it, somebody can wind up in a fucking wheelchair. This is what most people don't get about pro wrestling -- it's "fake," but the wrestlers don't get to rehearse the match move by move. It's not like a fight scene in a movie, where the performers may spend weeks working out the choreography, yet every move needs both wrestlers cooperating perfectly or somebody's neck will get broken. That means the performers need to talk to one another.

Ever watch a match and notice how one wrestler will do a move where he's kind of just holding the other guy's head for a bit, maybe in a side headlock or an armbar, for no particular reason? This frequently used move is called a rest hold. Not only does this give the wrestlers a chance to take a breather, but they can also communicate with each other about what the next spots will be. This is either to remind the other wrestler what's coming up or just a friendly "Hey, dude, this is about to hurt."

Sometimes we're not even that subtle in the ring and just shout out under cover of the crowd what needs to happen next -- listen closely and you can even hear it during broadcasts:

Note the part at the beginning where a guy gets slammed and his opponent asks if he's OK. And when the guy says "no," he lies on top of him (in the guise of an attempted pin) to give him a moment to recover. That's the sort of thing that could simultaneously shatter your opinion of wrestling and make you realize how fucking amazing it is. There's a huge live audience there -- there are no time-outs, and anything that goes wrong has to be smoothly covered without breaking the flow of the action. You might notice that these are exactly the type of quick creative decisions that are difficult to make in the dazed moments after you've been bashed in the head with a folding chair.

If you're wondering how people aren't constantly getting injured doing that, the answer is ...

#3. The Injuries Are Real, and Common

Comstock/Stockbyte/Getty Images

It's true that wrestling scripts often include fake injuries as part of a storyline, but behind the scenes, real injuries are constant. Wrestling is the most physically demanding sport out there -- there's no off-season and not much break between matches. Lacerations are a daily occurrence, you suffer numerous knee and ankle injuries, and some injuries are so brutal that they need to be edited out for broadcast (get hit in the head with a foreign object at the wrong angle, and suddenly you've got a gash in your scalp that takes 22 staples to close).

There's been a lot of controversy lately about all of the concussions in the NFL and the long-term effects on player health. Well, pro wrestlers have a death rate 20 times higher than that of NFL players -- pro football has only lost six players directly from injuries since 1970 (and Major League Baseball has only had one since 1921). Meanwhile, between 1997 and 2004, 65 wrestlers died from heart attacks, growth enhancement abuse, and other causes directly related to wrestling. This isn't to downplay the health problems other athletes suffer -- long-term effects of head injuries are terrible no matter how you got them. The point is, only one of the above is thought of as a fake sport.

Donald Miralle/Digital Vision/Getty ImagesThat's right ... baseball.

What makes wrestling so brutal if (most of) the punches aren't really landing? Let's start with the ring we're getting slammed into -- it looks pretty soft, but it's actually just a thin piece of plywood placed under thinner mats and a bunch of steel springs under that. And those ropes we get thrown into? Those are usually metal cables covered in tape. A few bounces off of those and you have bruises that'll be with you longer than the cartilage in your knees.

And that's just the standard setup; when wrestling gets creative, it also gets dangerous. Take the 1998 "Hell in the Cell" match between the Undertaker and Mick Foley (a legendary event among wrestling fans). It was a cage match in which it was scripted for them to fight on top of the cage, and then for Foley to be thrown off the cage 20-something feet down onto a "soft target" (a ringside table rigged to break his fall). Being thrown onto a breakaway table was dangerous enough, but it had been done before (although not from that height). Do not fucking try this at home:

Despite the announcer's reaction there ("They've killed him!"), that was all planned. However, something went wrong halfway into the match. After getting back on top of the cage, Foley was slammed down onto the chain link, which broke away, dropping him down onto the ring itself. The ring that, as I just explained, is just a thin mat over a solid surface: